[GDT/PGT] Vancouver Canucks Vs. Seattle Kraken, Abbotsford Centre, October 4, 2023 @ 7PM PST, Preseason Game #5

[AatuD2]

6 minutes ago, The Social Hermit said:

Cole and Soucy have played 16-17 minutes throughout their careers. There’s a reason for that. Bumped up to 22 minutes would likely negatively impact their effectiveness. I don’t think Myers is still effective playing that many minutes any more, but he’s still a capable 3rd pairing defender.

The main reason they tried to trade him is his salary. All I’m saying is that people who appreciate what he can do are not dumb as shit.

 

 

Same people that were shitting on Beagle and Sutter were nowhere to be found once we played without them and had the pleasure of watching 32nd PK in the league for a couple of years. 

 

Myers has been averaging 20 mins/game and drawing assignments against the other team's top lines. He's been having to do that because Quinn was still young and we didn't have anyone else. 

 

Idea that Myers isn't an NHL defenseman is absurd. 

[Mordekai]

Tocchet already said game 4 & 6 are the main games for starting lineup. Todays game is game 5 so missing half the regulars is to be expected

[AatuD2]

1 hour ago, Hairy Kneel said:

I think Hirose is on a penalty for not coming back physically stronger,  like Tocc asked.

 

Yeah that's been the big message going into summer and guys have been facing the consequences of not having good summers. 

 

Hirose and Joshua have both been demoted in terms of their standing to end last year. Hopefully it's a lesson learned.  

 

Clear message for the whole team, come unprepared, face the consequences. 

[Honky Cat]

4 minutes ago, AatuD2 said:

 

Yeah that's been the big message going into summer and guys have been facing the consequences of not having good summers. 

 

Hirose and Joshua have both been demoted in terms of their standing to end last year. Hopefully it's a lesson learned.  

 

Clear message for the whole team, come unprepared, face the consequences. 

Joshua has been in the doghouse, but not demoted.

[snowman955]

31 minutes ago, Mackcanuck said:

https://canucksarmy.com/news/wdytt-preseason-predictions-canuck-hottest-start-season

 

Canucks streaming tonight’s untelevised preseason matchup vs. Seattle Kraken: How to watch

 

Tonight’s game won’t be televised, but the Canucks are going to be streaming the game on their website (canucks.com). The team tried to stream last Thursday’s game against, but ran into trouble thanks to the game taking place outside of Canada. Thankfully, they’ve streamed games from the Abbotsford Centre  before, so there shouldn’t be any issues tonight! Sportsnet 650’s Brendan Batchelor and Dan Riccio will have the call for tonight’s game!

Here's hoping regional restrictions do not apply.

It's lonely out here in Ottawa. Lol

[Jess]

31 minutes ago, The Social Hermit said:

Cole and Soucy have played 16-17 minutes throughout their careers. There’s a reason for that. Bumped up to 22 minutes would likely negatively impact their effectiveness. I don’t think Myers is still effective playing that many minutes any more, but he’s still a capable 3rd pairing defender.

The main reason they tried to trade him is his salary. All I’m saying is that people who appreciate what he can do are not dumb as shit.

 

Pretty sure Cole played close to 20 minutes last year. I believe he had spot duty with both Sergachev and Hedman, so he has experience playing some minutes with #1 defensemen.

[BlockerHigh]

1 hour ago, Odd. said:

I can’t take anyone who thinks Myers is a capable defenseman serious.

Myers may not be worth $6 mil a year but to say he’s not an NHL calibre defenseman is hilarious 

[Jess]

1 hour ago, CRAZY_4_NAZZY said:

 

 

So who are the best guys left? Hronek and Boeser I guess? Presumably DeSmith in net. I'm guessing Hronek pairs with Soucy on the top pairing and we have Myers on the 2nd pairing and the rest of the guys battling for D spots playing on D. Will be interesting to see if this ragtag can be better than the last one, but they should be with more NHL calibre players and against a Seattle team not icing their full roster.

 

EDIT: Forgot about Kuzmenko.

 

First line of Boeser and Kuzmenko...with Suter I guess? Lacking offensive power at centre without Miller and Petey. I wonder if Hoglander gets to play with Boeser or Kuzy or if he's supposed to anchor his own line. Beauvillier probably fills out the last top 6 winger spot, but we're so weak at a C this game I wonder if we try something like Joshua at C. Studnicka will probably get the 2C chance tonight I'm guessing.

 

My guess for the top two lines are:

 

Kuzmenko - Suter - Boeser

Hoglander - Studnicka - Beauvillier 

 

Only caveat here is that Hoglander and Beauvillier are both LW as far as I can tell, so not sure if they'd play RW for a game.

 

Soucy - Hronek

??? - Myers

 

DeSmith
 

[SISMIM]

1 hour ago, Strawbone said:

I don't like this defense-by-committee strategy at all. It feels like the team saying "screw it, we don't actually have anyone good enough to play with Hughes, so we'll just let him carry the load for whoever he plays with". He needs a stable partner to play his best free-wheeling offensive game. Someone like... oh I don't know, just pulling a name out of a hat... Chris Tanev!

I agree that this strategy leaves a lot to be desired and feels like the organization is failing to address a known issue that’s existed for years and across regimes.

Namely, making it a priority to find the right partner for Quinn Hughes, who is quite arguably their best (no offence to Petey) and most important (undeniable IMO) player.
 

We’ve seen what Hughes can do for this team when he’s playing 25+ minutes a night with a rotating cast of partners he carries. Just imagine what he could do with a quality RHD partner who actually backed him up, supported, and elevated his game.

 

And given that Hughes is on the ice for nearly half the game most nights, you’d think it would be a priority to optimize the results they’re actually getting from him when he’s on the ice (by giving him a quality defensive partner). Just seems a no-brainer. 
 

What I hope is that the current strategy is a short term one. It’s true that the cap mess they inherited is a barrier to making some roster improvements, and, as JR has said, this takes time to unravel. And obviously there have been inefficient contracts on the books (and on the defencemen roster in particular) that effectively block making certain acquisitions to improve the D corps. But we seem to be getting toward the final phase now of cleaning up the Benning mess, so hopefully in a year or two, there won’t be anything left of that. And hopefully also within a fairly short window, we might see options emerging from the prospect pool and draft (Tom Willander possibly) who will become that perfect RHD partner for Huggy.

 

Of course, it would be nice to have the team sign or trade for a quality RHD who can pair perfectly with Hughes. That would be ideal. And much better than going with a hope and a prayer that McWard can surprise everyone, solve the problem for them, and prove himself to be ready to play first pairing this season with Hughes. Or, failing that, that they can somehow rotate partners through, depending on situation and need, and cobble together a sort of Frankenstein solution. I guess that could be the plan, for now. But hopefully this is only a short term plan and a much better solution (to the question of Hughes’s partner) is on the horizon and will emerge in the near future.

[Elias Pettersson]

42 minutes ago, The Social Hermit said:

Cole and Soucy have played 16-17 minutes throughout their careers. There’s a reason for that. Bumped up to 22 minutes would likely negatively impact their effectiveness. I don’t think Myers is still effective playing that many minutes any more, but he’s still a capable 3rd pairing defender.

The main reason they tried to trade him is his salary. All I’m saying is that people who appreciate what he can do are not dumb as shit.

 

Cole played on average 19:23 with Tampa last year, who were one of the cup favourites.  He's also averaged almost 20 minutes 2 other times in his career.

[The Social Hermit]

8 minutes ago, -AJ- said:

 

Pretty sure Cole played close to 20 minutes last year. I believe he had spot duty with both Sergachev and Hedman, so he has experience playing some minutes with #1 defensemen.

True. He has played between 15-19 minutes in his career, never over 20. Myers has played 20-25 per year, never below 20. That’s a 5 min per game difference. I’m not trying to compare their abilities, Cole is a very good defenceman, but Myers has always been a minute cruncher, and not everyone can handle that.

[Jess]

Just now, The Social Hermit said:

True. He has played between 15-19 minutes in his career, never over 20. Myers has played 20-25 per year, never below 20. That’s a 5 min per game difference. I’m not trying to compare their abilities, Cole is a very good defenceman, but Myers has always been a minute cruncher, and not everyone can handle that.

 

I'll grant you that he can munch minutes, though I don't think he's very good at it anymore. Give Cole the same minutes and he's probably at least just as good, maybe better, at least currently. 10 years ago maybe, Myers was better though.

[AatuD2]

31 minutes ago, Honky Cat said:

Joshua has been in the doghouse, but not demoted.

I said demoted in relation to their standing to end last season. 

[The Duke]

Looks like Abby gets a bit of a turtle derby with some big names sitting out.  Hopefully our B team rises to the occasion here for the fans in the valley.

[Conscience]

10 minutes ago, The Social Hermit said:

True. He has played between 15-19 minutes in his career, never over 20. Myers has played 20-25 per year, never below 20. That’s a 5 min per game difference. I’m not trying to compare their abilities, Cole is a very good defenceman, but Myers has always been a minute cruncher, and not everyone can handle that.

Myers a minute cruncher on a bottom 5 team with defense as the weakest point? Ya true, though not sure that's saying much lol.

[Ghostsof1915]

Fixing the defence after decades of neglect is not going to happen overnight. I've said before last draft did a good job in addressing that problem. And ideally that's the way you want to fix it. Buy drafting and developing. You can't get picks and trade picks to restock the shelves. I get it you need to address the needs now. But trading away our picks for expensive players we can't afford is not going to help either. The team has to be smart. Look for value adds. Not going after big fish pending free agents.

 

Hopefully long term we can develop a surplus of defence. Because defence is always in demand and we can hopefully make 3rd and 4th round picks turn into 1st round picks.

 

[AatuD2]

1 minute ago, Conscience said:

Myers a minute cruncher on a bottom 5 team with defense as the weakest point? Ya true, though not sure that's saying much lol.

Bottom 5? 

 

Stop it, I wanted us to finish bottom 5 so bad each of last two years. 

 

15th and 11th worst 

 

[AatuD2]

25 minutes ago, SISMIM said:

I agree that this strategy leaves a lot to be desired and feels like the organization is failing to address a known issue that’s existed for years and across regimes.

Namely, making it a priority to find the right partner for Quinn Hughes, who is quite arguably their best (no offence to Petey) and most important (undeniable IMO) player.
 

We’ve seen what Hughes can do for this team when he’s playing 25+ minutes a night with a rotating cast of partners he carries. Just imagine what he could do with a quality RHD partner who actually backed him up, supported, and elevated his game.

 

And given that Hughes is on the ice for nearly half the game most nights, you’d think it would be a priority to optimize the results they’re actually getting from him when he’s on the ice (by giving him a quality defensive partner). Just seems a no-brainer. 
 

What I hope is that the current strategy is a short term one. It’s true that the cap mess they inherited is a barrier to making some roster improvements, and, as JR has said, this takes time to unravel. And obviously there have been inefficient contracts on the books (and on the defencemen roster in particular) that effectively block making certain acquisitions to improve the D corps. But we seem to be getting toward the final phase now of cleaning up the Benning mess, so hopefully in a year or two, there won’t be anything left of that. And hopefully also within a fairly short window, we might see options emerging from the prospect pool and draft (Tom Willander possibly) who will become that perfect RHD partner for Huggy.

 

Of course, it would be nice to have the team sign or trade for a quality RHD who can pair perfectly with Hughes. That would be ideal. And much better than going with a hope and a prayer that McWard can surprise everyone, solve the problem for them, and prove himself to be ready to play first pairing this season with Hughes. Or, failing that, that they can somehow rotate partners through, depending on situation and need, and cobble together a sort of Frankenstein solution. I guess that could be the plan, for now. But hopefully this is only a short term plan and a much better solution (to the question of Hughes’s partner) is on the horizon and will emerge in the near future.

 

It really is a short term strategy. 

 

We all need to realize that we need one more year of patience.  

 

I was happy that we had a conservative summer in just adding some small and short cap commitments. 

 

Trying to solve the Quinn Hughes' partner situation this summer would've been a faux-pas IMO. 

 

We have lots of money getting freed up next summer for Petey and Hronek extensions, and also for an upgrade on Myers at RHD. 

[Odd.]

25 minutes ago, BlockerHigh said:

Myers may not be worth $6 mil a year but to say he’s not an NHL calibre defenseman is hilarious 

If you seen him play last year, you know he was a huge part of the problem on the backend.

 

Cole averaged just under 20 minutes last year. Soucy will be playing about 17-20 minutes given the expanded role he’ll have here. 
 

There’s just no excuse to play Myers 22 minutes. Just because he played 22 minutes a game last season, doesn’t mean he actually can play those minutes and be good. He has had one of the worst underlying metrics for a defenseman in the NHL relative to others who play those exact same minutes. When depth guys like Brisebois and Wolanin effectively carried him like they did towards the tail end of last season, it shows just how cooked you are.

 

I wonder why we haven’t made the playoffs for 3 straight seasons now… perhaps it’s because of our defense. Getting Hronek/Soucy/Cole is a massive upgrade over any of the existing defenseman we had minus Hughes. 
 

I mean how could you sit there and justify giving Myers 20+ minutes a night and to play him beside Hughes (who were terrible together when they were tried as a pairing)? 
 

It’s like I’m talking to the Benning bros all over again. Just can’t see it until it’s damn too late. Like it’ll magically just fix itself.

[Goal_thecup]

1 hour ago, CRAZY_4_NAZZY said:

 

DiGiuseppe must be pinching himself to make sure he's not dreaming to be grouped with these guys.

 

[DeNiro]

6 minutes ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

Fixing the defence after decades of neglect is not going to happen overnight. I've said before last draft did a good job in addressing that problem. And ideally that's the way you want to fix it. Buy drafting and developing. You can't get picks and trade picks to restock the shelves. I get it you need to address the needs now. But trading away our picks for expensive players we can't afford is not going to help either. The team has to be smart. Look for value adds. Not going after big fish pending free agents.

 

Hopefully long term we can develop a surplus of defence. Because defence is always in demand and we can hopefully make 3rd and 4th round picks turn into 1st round picks.

 

Always gotta build from the net out.

 

Nonis and Gillis understood this which is why we had such a deep blueline.

 

Benning tried to build from the bottom 6 out with overpriced plugs. 

 

Defense can’t be an afterthought. You can always get wingers later. Stabilize the net and the top 4, then fill out the centers and go from there.

[Strawbone]

I usually try to watch every Canucks game but I’m having a hard time getting excited to watch 2 half-rosters play each other this late in the pre-season. 
 

I suppose there’s always a chance some young guys will really impress but it feels like the roster is pretty much set. 
 

Opening night vs the Oilers can’t come soon enough!

[Odd.]

It’s hilarious that some people think just because a player was force fed top 4 minutes due to lack of quality that they’re suddenly minute munching top 4 defenseman

[Rip The Mesh]

43 minutes ago, -AJ- said:

 

So who are the best guys left? Hronek and Boeser I guess? Presumably DeSmith in net. I'm guessing Hronek pairs with Soucy on the top pairing and we have Myers on the 2nd pairing and the rest of the guys battling for D spots playing on D. Will be interesting to see if this ragtag can be better than the last one, but they should be with more NHL calibre players and against a Seattle team not icing their full roster.

 

EDIT: Forgot about Kuzmenko.

 

First line of Boeser and Kuzmenko...with Suter I guess? Lacking offensive power at centre without Miller and Petey. I wonder if Hoglander gets to play with Boeser or Kuzy or if he's supposed to anchor his own line. Beauvillier probably fills out the last top 6 winger spot, but we're so weak at a C this game I wonder if we try something like Joshua at C. Studnicka will probably get the 2C chance tonight I'm guessing.

 

My guess for the top two lines are:

 

Kuzmenko - Suter - Boeser

Hoglander - Studnicka - Beauvillier 

 

Only caveat here is that Hoglander and Beauvillier are both LW as far as I can tell, so not sure if they'd play RW for a game.

 

Soucy - Hronek

??? - Myers

 

DeSmith
 

Really like that Kuzmenko - Suter - Boeser line. Two born scoring machines and a player adept at the defensive side of things. 

[Odd.]

29 minutes ago, The Social Hermit said:

True. He has played between 15-19 minutes in his career, never over 20. Myers has played 20-25 per year, never below 20. That’s a 5 min per game difference. I’m not trying to compare their abilities, Cole is a very good defenceman, but Myers has always been a minute cruncher, and not everyone can handle that.

Cole also played with teams that had Makar, Toews, Hedman, Sergachev, Cernak, Letang, Schultz, Maata, Daley, Skjei, Slavin, Pesce, etc.

 

Soucy also played behind some really good defense. 
 

Also Myers has never averaged more than 22 minutes a year in his time with us.